Mourning Shift
“Family first” is something you’ll hear a lot from potential employers. They want to give you the impression that the work environment is fun, like how a family should be fun. And sure, there are jobs where you meet people you like and you form friendships with coworkers that last longer than the job itself. And then there are jobs where you go, “Oh, this is just a job.”
Of course, after you’ve worked a few jobs, you realize this is a ploy by management. “The office is like a family” is a way to deter you from seeking other “families” that pay more money. You have to watch the actions and reactions of those around you if you want to gauge how strong your desk family is. For example, how they react when someone passes away.
One of us did pass away recently. It wasn’t too big a surprise, I suppose; she had started her second battle with cancer weeks before and had been on FMLA since. Still, it was a blow to hear that we wouldn’t “see” her again (we work virtually, from home). I never met her in real life, but she was kind to me.
I guess everyone else had a feeling that she was never going to return. But I’ve worked here too long and didn’t believe it; she was a “lifer”. I used to joke that she would die before she stopped working here; I regret that choice of words now. She was an insanely devoted worker, for reasons I will now never understand. Despite being close to retirement age, she wanted to keep working right up until she was too sick to manage it. Companies can’t buy that kind of loyalty, but I do wish they’d try.
A few months prior she had sent us all an email to tell us she was taking leave to fight cancer again. She had titled the email, “Dysfunctional Family Update.” That was how she viewed us, you see. She was of a different generation, she bought into that “work family” stuff.. I rolled my eyes a bit at the time, but I wished her well.
The morning after the battle was lost, our account manager, based in a city a hundred miles away, sent us the email she was obliged to send. She doesn’t really know us; we are one of three accounts she manages so you can imagine how close we are. In order to save time, she replies to the email our coworker originally sent and doesn’t bother changing the subject line. The email still says, “Dysfunctional Family Update,” and the update is that one of us is dead.
The body of the email was fine, I suppose. “It is with a heavy heart, blah blah, if you need time to mourn let us know,” and so on. Those are hollow words. Let me tell you, this company does not want to pay us for grief time. Not that anyone will take it; only a few employees were actually close to her. The rest were pretty much strangers who either haven’t worked here that long or had limited interactions. I am in some weird middle ground; we weren’t close, but I did shed tears hearing she had died. I always think about someone’s life when they die, and I take a moment to grieve. I can’t help it.
But we do not stop for death here at our desk job. Excuse the poor choice of words, but the group chat was as lifeless as ever: “This job is ready,” “Can you grab this job next?” “brb, bathroom.” That day was not discernible from any other day, yet one of us died. When a friend of mine overdosed years ago, the owners closed the restaurant to attend his funeral. It doesn’t seem like a tall order, but we just kept working in the office, making sure there are two spaces after each period instead of one. If I died fixing period spacing, would anyone notice? Am I “living” now, really?
The email telling us that she is gone sits in my inbox. It’s between two asinine company-wide emails that mean nothing to me. The absurdity of it is just too much. A person’s life, represented by just another work email. I’m surprised they didn’t lump them all together into one message: “Free donuts in the break room today, also Nancy died.”
I hope I’m not using this woman’s death as an excuse to fuel my fury. Somehow her anger with this company (which I know she had) never got in the way of her devotion to it. Maybe it gave her life a sense of purpose. Maybe she was just pursuing the money. I wish she had pursued her free time instead; she’s all out of it now.
So the next day after her death, a Friday, I called off the last two hours of my shift (that’s a no-no; I will lose employee of the month points, damn!). I called off to go to a dive bar in the city, where I listened to a band I like play a two-hour set, while a pool tournament played out behind me. It was lovely. I drank two whiskey and cokes, one for me and one for Nancy. I will spend more time doing what I love, with my friends and family, and not doing overtime at my desk job. I am sure she had a full life outside of her job; I hope she was able to enjoy it.
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Watch this blog and/or my socials to hear about the release of my first collection of short stories, Manson Wanted to Live Here, which will be out later this month.
